On Media

Clinton emails shed light on media diet

By HADAS GOLD

05/22/2015 06:37 PM EDT

Beyond shedding new light on Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, the hundreds of pages of emails released by the State Dept. on Friday provide a glimpse into the presidential hopeful's media diet -- as well as her staff's attitudes about certain media outlets.

For one thing, Clinton clearly listens to NPR. On one Friday morning in October 2012, she sent an email to her Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, saying, “I just heard an NPR report about the CIA station chief in Tripoli sending a cable on 9/12 saying there was no demo etc. Do you know about this?”

The secretary also sent a New York Times article to her Deputy Chief of Staff Jacob Sullivan, which reported that Clinton had cited a “clear link” between Al Qaeda and the Benghazi attack. “[T]his is a stretch beyond what I said or intended, but I don’t think we need to say more," she wrote. "Do you agree?”

Sullivan replied that they were working with Times reporter Eric Schmitt, “who is being a pain in the ass. I feel okay about it.” The Times story was later corrected, with a note saying that the original article incorrectly paraphrased remarks from Benghazi residents and changed the headline.

Then-State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland described one Wall Street Journal article about a succession of security lapses and misjudgments in Benghazi as a “hit piece.”

“This is a real hit piece - they intentionally twisted and misused info shared to help them understand how we work, while using Libyan sourcing as gospel. Totally unprofessional and egregiously inflammatory,” she wrote in an email to Clinton.

After John McCain went on Greta Van Susteren in December 2012 and said Clinton never backs “down from a fight” and that she is “not physically well enough to testify,” Hillary suggested to aide Huma Abedin that “someone should call Greta VS to thank her for "knowing the truth."

After then U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was interviewed on ABC"s “This Week” by Jake Tapper, Sullivan emailed to Clinton that the only troubling sentence from Rice was that the investigation would show whether “what transpired in Benghazi might have unfolded differently in different circumstances.” But Sullivan said Rice was “pushed there.”

Staff members often forwarded Clinton articles both positive and negative, and Clinton would sometimes instruct them to “pls print.” We don’t know whether printing meant that the articles were important and meant to be saved, or whether she simply wanted to read them later.

Among the articles forwarded to Clinton:

- A New York Times article about an independent inquiry into the Benghazi attack, which sharply criticized the State Department.

- A Wall Street Journal about how Libya was Clinton’s failure and that she “shouldn’t get a free pass from Congress.”

- A lauditory article by Andrew Sullivan (“with the Hillary love”), which was sent around to staff.

- A Boston Herald op-ed by Margery Eagan, headlined “An apology to Hillary” to be printed. The op-ed praised her as “resilient” and a “true leader.”

- An article from Slate describing a press conference by Clinton as "her most eloquent."

- A column by Leslie Gelb in The Daily Beast giving both Clinton and the president credit for conducting themselves “very well amid the confusion and crisis.”

- A Salon article by Craig Unger about how Republicans were going to exploit the Libya attack to paint Obama as weak on terrorism. Clinton told Sidney Blumenthal she was pushing the article to the White House.

Elsewhere in the trove is an exchange between Clinton aide Phillippe Reines and the late journalist Michael Hastings, in which the two made amends after their infamous tete-a-tete. Hastings had questioned (and criticized) Reines after the aide slammed CNN for finding and publishing a journal by Ambassador Chris Stevens. Reines responded by telling Hastings to “fuck off” and “have a nice life."

Following the blow up, Reines reached out to Hastings and apologized for his “unprofessional response."

“As you can imagine this has been an intense time for everyone at the State Department, including me. While I stand by the fundamental principles at issue here, that does not justify my unprofessional response to your emails. I particularly do not want my words to be a distraction from this tragedy.

I apologize, both for my language and for my tone,” Reines wrote.

Hastings wrote back: “Thanks very much for the note. I appreciate it. I have deep sympathy for what your team and the families of the victims are going through. In Baghdad years ago, someone I cared for very deeply lost her life with three others in the service of promoting our values overseas. This experience probably added to the intensity behind my questions and responses as well. In the interest of diplomacy and extending an olive branch: we should get a drink sometime, off the record.”